


if you think my winter is too cold (you don't deserve my spring)

by theexistentialqueer



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Gen, House Stark, I don't have a beta, Not Season 8 compliant, Pre-Relationship, Season 8 Spoilers, i just re-read after i post and fix all the mistakes then when i find them, i love sansa+arya but if you think they don't bicker after reconciling you don't know them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-01-25 18:14:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18579898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theexistentialqueer/pseuds/theexistentialqueer
Summary: The world is changing beyond Sansa's control. She must change with it, but she'll fight it first.(This was going to be concurrent season 8 until season 8 happened. Now it's going to be blatant Dany/Sansa with no consideration for anything else.I'm mad the show did everyone this dirty.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from an Erin Hanson poem:  
>  _Because the birdsong might be pretty,_  
>  _But it's not for you they sing,_  
>  _And if you think my winter is too cold,_  
>  _You don't deserve my spring._

Once upon a time there was a little girl who believed she was a princess. Like all girls who believe they are princesses, she thought the world would reorder itself to suit her fancy.

Then she watched as a sword cleved her father's head from his body, and she realized she was a nobody who had nothing, and the world didn't care what she wanted.

So many years, and so much suffering and stupidity and trying later, she was home again. She had her family again. Most importantly, she had possession of herself again. She had Petyr killed because he threatened her family, and he threatened her family by trying to take away her control of herself.

Being Lady of Winterfell with no one to answer to but her obligations to her banners and to Jon, she could be content. She could sacrifice for her banners and she could sacrifice for Jon, because she knew her duty and she trusted from the start that neither would ever ask of her more than she could pay.

She can pay a lot, but she will no more pay beatings of her body or violations of her self. She will not be a helpless pawn in anyone else's schemes.

Then Jon submits himself to the Targaryen queen. And with himself he submits the rest of them as well.

For such a short time she was her own mistress, and just like that it ended.

* * *

 

After Petyr's trial, she retires with her sister and brother to the solar and reads them the letter the raven brought her from Jon.

"The dragon has three heads," Bran supplies cryptically once she's finished reading, "and she is the Prince That Was Promised."

Arya and Sansa say nothing to that; nothing Bran says makes sense anymore. They just look at each other, and then away.

"What do you think Father would have done?" Arya asks.

Sansa looks back at her sister. Once, when she was young and stupid, she'd wished for a different sort of sister: a gentle and beautiful sister with laughter like starlight, who loved the same stories she did, who would dance with her and sew with her and tell her giggling stories beneath the bedcovers of her longings and her dreams. She'd seen Arya that day sparring with Brienne in the yard, and she'd thought, _I never realized a woman with a weapon could be beautiful._

"What do you mean?" Sansa asks, because Arya could mean any number of things.

"Well, if Father was you," Arya says, her body frozen in posture, face turned toward the moonlit window, "sitting here and reading this letter, how do you think he'd respond?"

Sansa turns away to re-read the letter. _I have bent the knee to Daenerys Targaryen_ , it says, _to gain her support in the coming war. We now have ample supply of dragonglass, I hope, to see us through the Long Night. Winterfell must be made ready._

Simple words, befitting Jon, straight and to the point. No direct command, just a statement and the implied trust she will carry it through.

"If there was such an upside-down world that a bastard would be named king while his natural father was still alive," Sansa says thoughtfully, "Father would have done what his king asked of him, as he was honor-bound to do."

Arya looks surprised at that response. "That's it?" she asks, as if she was expecting something more, something that didn't fit to the neat definitions of the world their parents had tried to build for them. As if Arya had asked,  _What would Father do?_ and really meant,  _What do you think is best we do?_

Sansa smiles, the expression careful and precise and showing the expectation of what she should feel. "We're not Father. He was bound by honor, as we are, but we must put our duty to our people above honor, and our family above even that."

The corner of Arya's lip curls up in a smile. "Family, Duty, Honor?" she asks.

"Family, Duty, Honor," Sansa agrees.

* * *

 

When she receives Jon's next letter, she's in her study. The young half-trained Maester from the Night's Watch is the one who delivers it to her.

She rolls the sliver of parchment back up with neat, vicious movements. Jon asks so much of her, as if she's a hero from the old tales who can deliver the impossible.

"My l-lady?" Samwell asks her, stuttering over her title.

"Samwell," Sansa asks, "how much food do we have in our stores?"

"Enough for a three-year winter, my lady," Sam supplies, "estimating for the peoples of all the Northern houses. Your records' nearest count is forty thousand men, women, and babes."

Sansa leans over her accounts. Enough food to supply forty thousand people for three years. Now she must factor in a hundred thousand Dothraki warriors, with no estimation of their non-combatants, plus nearly fifteen thousand Unsullied. She'll have to consult with the Maesters again for to determine how far their food will bring them.

She suspects this winter will last longer than that.

* * *

 

When she was young and stupid she believed beauty was the sign of a just and worthy soul, until that lesson was beaten out of her. 

She's a slow learner, but she learns.

Her first thought when she sees Daenerys Targaryen is that try as Cersei might, her star will never shine brighter than this dragon queen's.

She watches Jon and sees the way his body curves towards her, like Daenerys is a sun and Jon her satellite, her gravity pulling him in. She remembers that for all their differences, they are brother and sister, and they have enough in common to matter. Sansa was once young and stupid and believed the world was as she saw it. Jon was young and stupid too once, and he's young and stupid still.

She won't let anything hurt her family, and if her brother needs to be saved from himself, she'll save him too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She will guard the North with her body; she will guard her body with the North. The North, in the end, is her body, as she is it. The winds of winter howl through her, and in her solitary heart, she howls back.
> 
> \------
> 
> At this point this is a season 8 fix-it fic with deliberate and copious amounts of Daensa. I apologize for nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you surprised by a second chapter at this point? So am I. I cried myself to sleep after 8x05. I won't be watching the last episode.
> 
> The only thing that was good about 8x02 was Sansa and Dany's conversation.

Her unplanned interlude with the dragon queen does not go well.

Or, more precisely, does not go as she would have liked.

She will guard the North with her body; she will guard her body with the North. The North, in the end, is her body, as she is it. The winds of winter howl through her, and in her solitary heart, she howls back.

In the safety of her solar, she pores over lists, reports, accounts. An ache grows at the back of her skull; she has never been as good with figures as Arya--although unlike Arya, she know how to seek counsel. Arya will take counsel from Sansa, from Bran, from Brienne, even, but at an offer of help from anyone else, her lips go thin and her face closes itself away. And that's alright: Arya's training was in something else entirely.

( _When she's in bed at night, the furs pulled tightly over her and a banked fire flickering in the hearth, she sees it when she closes her eyes: Petyr on his knees begging, not crying but a twisted, awful sound in his throat, and Arya sliding her knife across his neck in one fluid motion. Sansa gave the order, Sansa knew what she was doing, Sansa knows it was right--but Sansa also remembers the man who pulled her up onto the deck of a ship with the bells of death ringing at her back and telling her, "You're safe now." The man who tried to kiss her and pictured himself on the iron throne with her beside him._

_The man who sold her father and mother to their deaths and her to Ramsay's tender care._

_She thanks the old gods every night that Arya came home._ )

 

* * *

 

Someone knocks on the door. Sansa, head bent over the latest tally of refugees, purses her lips. "Enter," she says.

The sound of the footsteps across the flagstones is familiar: the gait of a small body made heavy by a limp. Sansa schools her features and looks up to see Tyrion heaving himself up into a chair.

"I understand I have you to thank for my return to good graces, Lady Stark," he says, his use of her title deliberate. Sansa leans back and rests her hands before her, one folded over the other.

"Have you come to celebrate?" Sansa asks, a note of sarcasm in her voice. "I'm afraid I don't keep wine ready, but I can have some brought up from the kitchens if you like."

Tyrion almost manages to hold back his grimace--a point won in Sansa's favor. "I appreciate the offer, but no. I've been trying to cut back on bad habits."

"Have you?" Sansa asks coolly. She knows why Tyrion is here, why Tyrion is seeking her out, and it isn't because he wants to thank her. "That is good to hear. Your queen needs you in good health."

Tyrion watches her levelly. He hears the bait, can see it dancing in the air in front of him, and he's smart enough to take it. "My queen, yes," he agrees, nodding, and she can practically see the clockwork moving behind his eyes. "I'd hoped we might speak of her."

Sansa straightens her back even further and levels Tyrion with her most imperious stare. "You have my leave," she says, as if he'd been asking for permission.

She's being haughty. She's being haughty on purpose, and she knows it, and she knows Tyrion knows it too. To his credit, he doesn't let it flounder him. He doesn't smirk, doesn't simper. He meets her stare with a calm one of his own.

"I think you look at her and you fear Cersei come again," he says.

The way he says it, so simply and truly, makes ice prickle under Sansa's skin. All of these people around her: her family home again at last, Theon, Brienne, Lord Royce; the people who have known her: Randa, Mya, Shae, Jeyne. They all look at her and see a thousand things. Tyrion looks at her and sees her truly; he always has.

Sansa slides her chair back with the sound of wood dragging over stone; Sansa stands.

"When I look at her, I see the end of the free and independent North my brother bled and died for," Sansa says, and she isn't imperious, she is _true_. "Thank you for your counsel, Lord Hand. Good day."

 

* * *

 

Arya finds her in her chambers that night, where Sansa is sitting at her small desk in her nightdress with a heavy cloak over her shoulders, going over more accounts.

How had she ever thought being the lady of a castle was a fairy tale? Accounts are _endless_.

Arya doesn't knock before she enters; Arya doesn't announce her arrival. Arya opens the door and slips in as quiet as a whisper, and closes it as quietly as well. She crosses the room in short, silent strides, and dumps herself audibly into one of the great leather chairs across from the bed.

Sansa doesn't start to pay her deliberate intention until Arya starts cleaning beneath her nails with a knife, and only to see if she's using the Valyrian steel one. That she's not is a balm to Sansa's nausea.

" _Must_  you do that here?" she asks, and there's a note of distress creeping into her voice she can't control. Arya looks up at her in a self-satisfied way as she flicks the knife away to clean it.

"Do what?" Arya asks innocently, and her training and Sansa's might be meant for completely different things, but Arya's mask is as perfect as Sansa could ever hope hers to be: perfect innocence with just a touch of amusement.

Sansa gives up and slams her book shut. "You know what," she says, nastier than she intends.

Arya's face softens, and then she laughs.

"What?" Sansa asks.

Arya makes to wipe tears from her eyes that Sansa can't see. "You haven't sounded that nasty since I was stabbing my breakfast with a knife and telling you I was practicing for Joffrey.

She remembers that morning; she remembers being that stupid and spoiled. She can't help the way a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth, until she's laughing. After a moment, more somberly, she tells Arya, "After Father was killed, he brought me up to see the heads. He told me he'd give me Robb's as a gift."

"What did you do?" Arya asks, watching her, something morbid in her gaze.

She remembers that afternoon on the battlements, despair clamped tight around her soul. Remembers Ser Meryn's mailed fist smashing into her cheek and the way her jaw had throbbed for days afterwards. She remembers looking at the tarred head of her father thrusting jauntily from a spike, how she'd felt like she was dying inside, and she smiles.

"I told him maybe Robb would give me his."

Arya barks out a laugh. "You didn't!"

"I did," Sansa says, tasting the humor in her voice. This time when Arya laughs, she laughs with her.

 

* * *

 

The next person to knock at the door of her solar is a guard. "Who is it?" Sansa calls.

The guard sounds unsure as he responds. "A woman called Missandei of Naath," he says, "of...Queen Daenerys's household."

Sansa pushes away a report on the skills brought by their refugee guests and rubs at her tired eyes. She sets her shoulders and prepares for battle. "Come in," she calls.

The door opens, and a slim, brown woman with wild hair steps into the room and bows.

Sansa stands and smiles. This girl is not the dragon queen; she's not Jon or Tyrion. She may not like this arrangement, she may not like this dragon queen, but she is a lady and she knows her courtesies.

"Missandei of Naath," she says. "Have I said that right?"

The girl straightens, and offers a smile that holds multitudes behind it. "Very close, my lady, but I am not the type to pull a thread out of a weaving."

"Can I offer you anything? Wine? Hot beer? Hot milk and honey?"

"Please, my lady, don't trouble yourself."

"Hot milk and honey," Sansa says, nodding to the servant standing in the corner, "and some winter fruits too, please."

The servant dips in a curtsy and slips away behind a tapestry covering the servants' stairs. 

Sansa gestures towards a chair and settles back into her own. "Please, sit. What brings you to me?"

Missandei sits, and Missandei looks uncomfortable. It's not just the heaviness of the fur-and-leather coat she's wearing discomfiting her; it's what she's come here to do. "My lady, I come here at the behest of another," she says.

Sansa tilts her chin up; Sansa has already guessed as much.

"I have been told you are both a deeply logical person of great cunning and also a compassionate woman of great emotion. I was told to say as much to you, so that you might listen."

"I think I can guess," Sansa says, not unkindly. "Lord Tyrion bid you appeal to my generous heart."

Missandei meets her eyes, and Missandei is not a weak or foolish woman, Missandei knows how to shutter her emotions when she does not want them seen; there is a story there. Missandei's eyes meet Sansa's, and her eyes say yes.

And Sansa understands the trap that Tyrion has laid for her.

She bids Missandei to speak, and she listens.

* * *

 

_The dragon queen will strangle the North, and they will never again be free._

_The dragon queen burns men alive who do not bow to her._

_The dragon queen tricked the slave masters of Astapor into giving her an army, then taught them the meaning of justice._

_The dragon queen freed slaves and punished the men who hurt them._

_The dragon queen was a child, and her brother sold her for an army._

_The dragon queen was a child, and her husband was her master._

_The dragon queen was nothing, and the dragon queen birthed dragons._

_The dragon queen was a slave to men, and the dragon queen broke free._

* * *

 

When Sansa was a little girl, she loved the stories. She doesn't believe in them anymore. Princes don't rescue princesses, they just hurt them. There are no true knights. In songs, the monsters win.

But one day when she saw Arya and Brienne in the courtyard, the ice-glint of metal in their hands as they whirled around one another in a dance Sansa could never know. Sansa thought, _princesses can rescue themselves_. Sansa thought, _what makes a knight is honor and courage and nothing else_.

_In the songs_ , Sansa thinks, _the monsters are men_. The ones who kill them just don't get the glory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh the fact that Sansa and Missandei were so antagonistic made me SO MAD. The fact that Sansa and Tyrion's relationship was just boiled down to "you were the best of them" and some casual flirting made me SO MAD.
> 
> I'm mad at the entire season and the entire show, feel free to be mad with me.
> 
> I'm in the complicated position of liking BOTH Daensa and Jonerys, but I'm so angry about the show this is just going to be full-on Daensa from here on out.

**Author's Note:**

> This started out with me trying to write Dany/Sansa in season 8 and realizing I really couldn't write fuck-anything like until the season ended, so instead I decided to take what I'd written after each episode and treat it like a post-episode exploration of Sansa, and hopefully I'll be able to make Dany/Sansa happen at the end. WE'LL SEE.
> 
> This is show canon, but I will incorporate book canon where and when I can. Any references to book canon I make, I'll try to explain in notes at the beginning or end of the chapter. I wrote this first chapter last week and finished it up today. I'm sure I'll keep working on chapter 2 until after 8x03 airs.
> 
> I am 100% arguing that Sansa's main issue with Dany is that she does not trust a person she does not know having authority over her, and she views the North as an extension of herself in this respect.


End file.
